Not a day went by in London where a woman didn't have to fear for her life. This was particularly true if the woman lived in the poorer areas of the city; or, in some cases, worked in them. Such was the case for Cassandra Paine, a twenty nine year old woman attempting to blossom in the acting world. It wasn't her fault that London's theatre district happened to fall into what had been called the shadier parts of town, but since it was, she was often inclined to travel in groups or ask someone to walk her back home to her building as opposed to traveling alone. But tonight, she'd dared to wander out of her comfort zone, and perhaps it was a mistake. She hugged her pocketbook to her side as she walked down the stone-paved streets, the heels of her shoes clicking noisily with each and every step she took.
Cass wanted nothing more than to be home at the moment, but her home was so far away. She kept her head down with each step she took, not liking the way some of the homeless people lining the sides of the street were eyeing her. When she heard footsteps beginning behind her own, though, her fear escalated in tenfold. Was someone following her this entire time? Had she been too deaf to notice it? Immediately, her heart began to pound beneath her chest. She needed to get out of the streets and fast. Glancing up for the first time in three blocks, she spotted the nearest building and made a graceful, yet mad dash for the entrance.
Slender fingers wrapped around the handle of the door once she reached it and with an easy turn, she found herself stepping into what appeared to be a bar. She chewed on her lower lip as she headed further inside, smoothing out the elegant red gown she was wearing. The bar seemed normal enough at the first glance, and the kindly middle aged woman smiling behind the bar counter reassured her and made her feel much less ill at ease. She leaned against the wall beside the entryway for a moment, needing to regulate her breathing so she didn't give herself a heart attack.
Once she felt as if she wasn't going to pass out from fright any longer, Cassandra hesitantly stepped forwards into the bar. It was only as she made her way closer to a table on the other side of the room that she noticed the small doorway beside the adjacent winding stairwell. Her interest having been piqued, she glanced around curiously, almost cautiously, before approaching the door. She pushed two of her fingertips against the creaking old wood and smiled faintly as the door swung forward in return. She peaked through the crack between the door and the doorway itself, and her eyes widened at the sight. The room was filled to capacity it seemed with men and woman alike shouting and screaming at the top of their lungs. She should've turned back then, have pretended like she hadn't seen anything. But her interest was getting the better of her.
Biting her lip once more, the brunette moved hesitantly into the slightly larger room and squeezed her way through the crowd. Murmuring a few quietly polite words, she shifted into an open area in the crowd, and that was when she saw it. Her eyes widened at the sight and her lips twisted to form a perfectly round shape. There in the center of the room were two men, incredibly bloodied up, taking swings at one another. The bar was housing a fight club? She bit down on her lip to suppress the words that wanted to escape her. They were far from lady-like, that was for sure, so she didn't find it polite to say them, even though she knew no one would hear them in the crowded mess of this place.
I need to get out of here, Cassandra thought, squirming uncomfortably amongst the crowd. She shifted some and tried to turn to make a run for it, but her previously viewed way of leave was blocked off. She furrowed her brow then and attempted another exit, but screeched to an abrupt halt as a small child—a child!—scurried past her. The young actress blinked then and turned once more, this time given a perfect view of the fight going on in the midst of the madness. She scowled, shaking her head with the utmost disapproval, and was about to fight her way through the crowd when she noticed him. Or rather, when he noticed her.
She didn't know who he was, and he didn't know who she was either. But from the moment her eyes laid on the mysterious bloodied up stranger, and the instant the eyes of the idiot savant detective first settled on her much out of place features, they could both tell something was about to change.